charles spurgeon quotes

“Whenever you get one inch above the ground in your own esteem, you are that inch too high!”–1895, Sermon 2395

“A curious fact can be proved by abundant evidence, namely, that the boast of human perfection is closely followed by obscenity and licentiousness!” –1893, Sermon 2326

“We often pray for Christians in adversity, and it is right that we should do so; but it is even more necessary to pray for Christians in prosperity, for they run the risk of gradually becoming soft, like Hannibal’s soldiers destroyed by Capuan holidays, who lost their valor in their luxury. Many a man who was an out-and-out Christian when he was lower down in life has, when prosperous, become much too great a gentleman to associate with those who were his honored Brothers and Sisters before.”–1891, Sermon 2217

“That experience which a man boasts of is an experience he ought to be ashamed of!”– 1892, Sermon 2274

“Another beauty which God puts on the meek is contentment. They that are of a quiet and gentle spirit through the grace of God are satisfied with their lot. They thank God for little. They are of the mind of the godly woman who ate the crust of bread and drank a little water and said, ‘What? All this, and Jesus Christ, too?’ There is a great charm about contentment, while envy and greed are ugly things in the eyes of those who have anything like spiritual perception. So meekness, through bringing contentment, beautifies us.”–1895, Sermon 2421

“Let me give you a little piece of advice: do not think of yourself, but think of your Lord! Or, if you must think of yourself, for every time you give an eye to self, give twice that time to Christ! Then shall your meditation of Him be sweet.”–1895, Sermon 2403

“Observe that we are told to walk humbly with God. It is of no use walking humbly away from God. I have seen some people very proudly humble, very boastful of their humility. They have been so humble that they were proud enough to doubt God! They could not accept the mercy of Christ, they said. They were so humble. In truth, theirs was a devilish humility, not the humility that comes from the Spirit of God.”–1893, Sermon 2328

“A humble desire is one which leaves everything in God’s hands. The man who has it says, ‘Now, though I desire this, it may be it is not a right desire. Lord, I desire only to desire what I ought to desire! My desire is that Your desire should be written on my heart, that I may desire what You desire.’ Your will be done in my soul, in my body, in my circumstances, and in me, in all respects.”–1894, Sermon 2342

“It is a dangerous thing for some people to be made much of in this world—their heads soon get turned, and they begin to think too much of themselves. He who thinks that he is somebody is nobody; and he whose head swims because of his elevation will soon have it broken because of his tumbling down from his lofty position. Daniel was a man greatly beloved and God showed him His great love by setting him in high places and keeping him there in safety.”–1892, Sermon 2256

“When you fancy that you are out of gunshot, there is an enemy close at hand. When you dream that the road is safe, there is a pitfall just before you. When you say, ‘I am perfectly holy,’ the very pride that makes you say so is an indication of a deadly cancer of self- righteousness that is eating into your very soul!”–1892, Sermon 2274

“It has been well said that the angels excel in strength, but the saints excel in their weakness. When we are most weak and Christ strengthens us, then are the most excellent virtues produced.”–1894, Sermon 2351

“A dead thing must not be brought to the altar of God! Remember, that under the Jewish law, they never offered fish upon the altar because they could not bring it there alive. Everything brought to God as a sacrifice must be alive. Its blood must be poured out warm at the altar’s foot.”–1892, Sermon 2239

​“I like to see a man keep to the old things, but even in doing so he may make a mistake; for there may be old things that can be supplanted by newer and better things. Keep your eyes lifted up to God with Whom nothing is old and nothing is new! Wait at His footstool. Submit your heart like a tablet for Him to write upon it all His instructions. And then do as He has said.”–1892, Sermon 2280

“I say again that detailed obedience is the surest evidence that the Lord has forgiven your sin. For instance, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved’ (Mar 16:16). Do not omit any part of that precept. And if Christ bids you come to His Table and thus remember Him, do not live in neglect of that command. At the same time, remember to live soberly, righteously, honestly, godly in this present evil age, for if you do not, if there is not a detailed obedience, there may be a fear that after all, the Lord has never said to you, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee’ ” (Mat 9:2).–1893, Sermon 2337

“All the works that we can ever do, be they what they may, can never bring such glory to God as a single act of trust in Him!”–1893, Sermon 2305

“If Christ has healed you, obey Him! Obey Him at once, obey Him exactly, obey Him in everything, be it little, or be it great! If some say it is nonessential, remember that what is not essential to salvation may be essential to obedience! Do it if Jesus commanded it. Do it whether it appears to you to be essential or not!...If He puts it to you, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved’ (Mar 16:16), believe and be baptized. Be obedient unto Him Who deserves to be obeyed.”–1895, Sermon 2417

“If He commands, let us obey. His command is that we are to believe in His name and to be baptized in His name. Let us not be disobedient to any part of His holy will.”–1895, Sermon 2410

“In heaven, they have no will but God’s will! Their will is to serve Him and delight them- selves in Him. And if you and I do not learn here below what obedience to God is, and practice it, and carry it out, how can we hope to be happy in the midst of obedient spirits?”–1893, Sermon 2317

“Prick the heart—yes, with but a needle’s point—and life will go! And prick the heart of faith—yes, even with the smallest doubt—and the life of joy is gone! The joy of faith and the strength of faith, yes, and the life of faith are gone when you distrust the Word of the Lord!”–1887, Sermon 1979

“It is a good thing to put up in your house the question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ It answers nine out of ten of the difficulties of moral casuistry. When you do not know what to do and the Law does not seem very explicit upon it, put it so—‘What would Jesus do?’ Here, then, stands the case: by your creation in Christ, you come to exhibit faith in Him, love to Him, and imitation of Him; and all these are the means by which good works are produced in you. You are ‘created in Christ Jesus unto good works’ ” (Eph 2:10). –1891, Sermon 2210

“Faith is not the trifle that some think it to be. This holy trust in God is the heart and soul of all true experimental godliness.”–1893, Sermon 2305

“It is disobedience and not obedience that prompts us to select from the commands of Christ which ones we care to obey.”–1893, Sermon 2317

“No man or woman can afford to be the friend of a man who is not a friend of God! If He does not love God, quit his company; for he will do you no good. Say with David, ‘I will not know a wicked person’” (Psa 101:4).–1894, Sermon 2362

“If God chooses to turn evil into good, as He often does, that is no reason why we should do evil; and it is no justification of sin! The murder of Christ at Calvary has brought the greatest possible benefit to us, yet it was a high crime against God, the greatest of all crimes, when man turned deicide* and slew the Son of God!”–1892, Sermon 2255

“God’s grace can keep you abstaining from sin, but, if you begin sinning, oh, how one sin draws on another! One sin is the decoy or magnet for another sin, and draws it on; and one cannot tell, when he begins to descend this slippery slide, how quickly and how far he may go!”–1895, Sermon 2414

“The work that you felt you could not do will have more acceptance with God than that which you performed in your ordinary strength.”–1894, Sermon 2343

About Sanctification​“Sanctification is the great open separator of Christians from the world!” –1893, Sermon 2313

“Sanctification, in its operation upon our character, consists of three things. First, we die to sin. A wondrous death! By this Jesus strikes at the heart of evil. The death of Christ makes us die to sin. After this comes burial. We are buried with Christ; and of this burial, baptism is the type and token. Covered up to be forgotten, we are to sin as a dead shepherd to his flock. As the sheep pass over the dead shepherd’s grave or even feed thereon, yet he regards them not—so our old sins and habits come about us, but we, as dead men, know them no more. We are buried to them! [Thirdly,] to complete our actual sanctification, we receive heavenly quickening. ‘Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him’ (Rom 6:8). Yes, we do live in Him and by Him, for, he that believeth in Him ‘hath everlasting life’ (Joh 3:36). I trust you know what this means. Have you been thus dead, thus buried with Christ? Are you now thus quickened in the likeness of His resurrection? This is your joyful privilege if you are, indeed, believers in Christ and joined unto the Lord in one spirit.”–1891, Sermon 2197

“Have I a right to be desiring to go to heaven if I can do any good to you here? Is it not more of a heaven to be outside of heaven than inside if you can be doing more for God outside than in?”–1892, Sermon 2262

“The forms of evil are many. I need not mention them, for, if I did, I might omit one and then perhaps the person who is under its influence might fancy that I did not think it to be a sin!”–1893, Sermon 2306

“God has a heavy hand for His sinful children. Other fathers may spoil their children with indulgence, but the Lord will not spoil His children. If we sin, we shall feel the weight of God’s hand. We ought to thank Him for this, for though it brings great sorrow, yet it brings great safety to us. The worst thing that can happen to a man is to be allowed to sin and yet to be happy in it.”–1892, Sermon 2284

“Beloved friends, we cannot be ready to die unless we have been taught how to live! We, who are active and have talents to use and health and strength with which to use those talents, must go on with ‘the greatest fight in the world’ until we can say with Paul, ‘I have fought a good fight’”(2 Ti 4:7). –1892, Sermon 2285

“When God hides His face from His people, it is almost always behind clouds of dust which they have made themselves. You will have sorrow enough in the ordinary way to heaven; do not make an extra rod for your own back.”–1892, Sermon 2284

“Childhood in grace is a sweet budding time with many rare beauties and delights.”– 1895, Sermon 2410

“Our gifts are not to be measured by the amount we contribute, but by the surplus kept in our own hands. The two mites of the widow were in Christ’s eyes worth more than all the other money cast into the treasury; for ‘she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living’ ” (Mar 12:44; Luk 21:4).–1891, Sermon 2234

“Brothers and Sisters, it is always a gain to us in our experience when we get farther and farther away from every dependence but the Lord!”–1893, Sermon 2300

“If you believe [in God], your belief will kill your sinning, or else your sinning will kill your believing! The greatest argument against the Bible is an unholy life; and when a man will give that up, he will convict himself.” –1893, Sermon 2305

“It is a mark of wonderful transformation in the character of some men, when their heart begins to go a little outside their own ribs, and they can feel for the sorrow of other men!”–1892, Sermon 2248

“Do you not think that when we read a story like that of Jonathan and David, it should stir up in us the desire, not so much to have such a friend, as to be such a friend as Jonathan was to David? Any man can selfishly desire to have a Jonathan, but he is on the right track who desires to find a David to whom he can be a Jonathan!”–1893, Sermon 2336

“When two saints are talking together, Jesus is very likely to come and make the third one in the company! Talk of Him and you will soon talk with Him.”–1892, Sermon 2279

“To come to Jesus, or rather to receive Jesus, Who has come to us, is the one essential step into eternal salvation.”–1891, Sermon 2203

“God bless you, dear hearers! We shall never, all of us, meet again on earth; that is not possible among these thousands from all quarters of the globe, but may the sincere penitent prayer of all the unsaved among us be so heard that we may all meet in heaven! Amen and Amen.”–1895, Sermon 2433

“I frequently hear persons exhorted to give their hearts to Christ…But that is not the Gospel. Salvation comes from something that Christ gives you, not something that you give to Christ. The giving of your heart to Christ follows after the receiving from Christ of eternal life by faith.” –1892, Sermon 2273 (Spurgeon’s point is the “giving one’s heart to Jesus” is not an act by which one becomes a Christian, as is often taught today. Rather it means submitting everything about one’s life to Christ in faith as a Christian.)

“On a dying bed, it must be none but Jesus; let it be none but Jesus on your bed tonight before you fall asleep. Do not dare to close your eyes until you have committed your soul into the keeping of Him Who still holds out His hands, as He did upon the Cross, that He may receive you with open arms and save you with an everlasting salvation! Amen.”– 1893, Sermon 2333

“‘Be merciful unto me,’ is the prayer you must learn to pray if you hope to enter the Kingdom of God.”–1894, Sermon 2372

“The best help you can give men socially is to help them religiously; and the best religious help is to preach the Gospel to them.”–1892, Sermon 2275

“Oh, that some poor soul would get his first mouthful of Christ tonight! Take Him! I have seen a hungry child sent by his mother to the baker’s. There is a little piece of bread put in as a ‘makeweight,’ and the poor child eats it on the way home. I give you leave to do that tonight! Carry the truth of God away with you and keep it! But eat a bit as you go home. Lay hold on Christ tonight, now, before you leave the Tabernacle. May His grace enable you to do it! And then sit down and eat, and eat, and eat forever of this precious, inexhaustible provision of God’s infinite love; and to Him shall be glory forever and ever! Amen.”–1892, Sermon 2278

“Because that Gospel is preached, there is hope for you! When there is no hope, there will be no presentation of the Gospel. God must, by an edict, suspend the preaching of the Gospel before He can suspend the fulfillment of the Gospel promise to every soul that believes! Since there is a Gospel, take it! Take it now, even now. God help you to do so!”–1892, Sermon 2249

“Remember that there is no salvation promised to an unconfessed faith. I boldly put it according to the Word of God. ‘if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved’ (Rom 10:9). There is no question that confession is here required. And again it is clearly stated, ‘He that believes and is baptized’--which is the confession that Christ requires— ‘shall be saved.’ And though confession with the mouth and baptism cannot save, yet the faith to which the promise is made is a faith that dares to confess and come out!”–1891, Sermon 2230

​“You will find all true theology summed up in these two short sentences: salvation is all of the grace of God; damnation is all of the will of man.” –1895, Sermon 2411

“Let me caution you against a very common expression. I hear converts continually told to give their hearts to Jesus. It is quite correct, and I hope they will do so. But your first concern must be not what you give to Jesus, but what Jesus gives to you! You must take Him from Himself as a gift to you—then will you truly give your heart to Him.”–1892, Sermon 2259

“The great destroyer of man is the will of man. I do not believe that man’s free will has ever saved a soul, but man’s free will has been the ruin of multitudes. ‘Ye would not’ is still the solemn accusation of Christ against guilty men (Mat 23:37; Luk 13:34). Did He not say at another time, ‘And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life’ (Joh 5:24)? The human will is desperately set against God and is the great devourer and destroyer of thousands of good intentions and emotions which never come to anything permanent because the will is acting in opposition to that which is right and true.”–1894, Sermon 2381

“The Egyptians have been counted the most degraded people of this world in their worship. They worshiped onions, until Juvenal says, ‘O blessed people, who grow their gods in their own gardens!’ But I do not think they were quite so degraded as the man that worships himself. If I could bring my soul to worship an onion, I could never degrade myself low enough to worship myself. A man who makes himself his own god is mad!”–1892, Sermon 2252

“God blessed William Huntington, the coal-heaver, to many souls, though he preached a very strong Calvinism; while at the same time, He was blessing some who preached a very weak Arminianism. But remember, God blesses neither the Calvinism nor the Arminianism—but the Christ that is in the sermon!”–1891, Sermon 2218

“I take leave to contradict those who say that salvation is an evolution! All that ever can be evolved out of the sinful heart of man is sin and nothing else! Salvation is the free gift of God by Jesus Christ, and the work of it is supernatural. It is done by the Lord Himself, and He has power to do it, however weak, no, however dead in sin the sinner may be!”– 1892, Sermon 2269

“We are sure that the Gospel we have preached is not after men because men do not take to it. It is opposed, even to this day. If anything is hated bitterly, it is the out-and-out Gospel of the grace of God, especially if that hateful word sovereignty is mentioned with it! Dare to say, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion’ (Rom 9:15), and furious critics will revile you without stint! The modern religionist not only hates the doctrine of Sovereign Grace, but he raves and rages at the mention of it! He would sooner hear you blaspheme than preach election by the Father, atonement by the Son, or regeneration by the Spirit! If you want to see a man worked up until the satanic is clearly uppermost, let some of the new divines hear you preach a free-grace sermon! A Gospel, which is after men, will be welcomed by men—but it needs a Divine operation upon the heart and mind to make a man willing to receive into his utmost soul this distasteful Gospel of the grace of God!”–1891, Sermon 2185

“I remember that within a week after I had found joy and peace in believing, I began to feel the uprisings of inbred sin and I cried out, ‘O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ I did not know that such a sigh and cry could never come out of an unbelieving heart—that there must be a new heart and a right spirit within the man to whom sin is a burden and who loathes it! I did not know that, then, and I wondered whether I could be a child of God at all!”–1893, Sermon 2296

“We long to see the people saved; but in order to that, they must be born again—and this we cannot ourselves accomplish. Change a stone into flesh? Try that at home with a piece of stone on your table before you attempt it with the hard hearts of men!”–1891, Sermon 2218

“I have known the Lord now for some 40 years or thereabouts. When I first came to Him, I came as a sinner without any works of my own that I could trust or any experience upon which I could rely. And I just rested my whole weight upon the finished work of Christ. Now, after 40 years of service and nearly 40 years of preaching the Gospel, have I any works of my own to add to what Christ has done? I abhor the thought of such a thing! Have I even the weight of a pin’s head that I dare put into the scale with my Lord’s merits? Accursed be the idea!”–1893, Sermon 2293

“If salvation had been by works, our Lord could not have said to the thief, dying at His side, ‘To day shalt thou be with me in paradise’ (Luk 23:43). That man could do no works! His hands and feet were fastened to the cross, and he was in the agonies of death. No, it must be of grace, all-conquering grace—and the modus operandi (Latin: the way in which a thing operates) must be by faith, or else for dying men the Gospel is a mockery!”–1891, Sermon 2210

“And next I think it will be admitted by all, that the way of salvation by good works would be self-evidently unsuitable to a considerable number. I will take a case. I am sent for in an emergency, and it is the dead of night. A man is dying, smitten suddenly by the death-blast. I go to his bedside, as requested. Consciousness remains, but he is evidently in mortal agony. He has lived an ungodly life—and he is about to die. I am asked by his wife and friends to speak to him a word that may bless him. Shall I tell him that he can only be saved by good works? Where is the time for works? Where is the possibility of them? While I am speaking, his life is struggling to escape him! He looks at me in the agony of his soul, and he stammers out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Shall I read to him the Moral Law? Shall I expound to him the Ten Commandments and tell him that he must keep all these? He would shake his head and say, ‘I have broken them all; I am condemned by them all!’ If salvation is of works, what more have I to say? I am of no use here. What can I say? The man is utterly lost! There is no remedy for him. How can I tell him the cruel dogma of ‘modern thought’ that his own personal character is everything? How can I tell him that there is no value in belief, no help for the soul in looking to An- other—even to Jesus, the Substitute? There is no whisper of hope for a dying man in the hard and stony doctrine of salvation by works!”–1891, Sermon 2210

“I venture to say that there is no fact, however palpable to all the senses, but what you can, if you like, find reasons for not believing it to be a fact. If somebody were to assert that I am not here and that I am not speaking, I have no doubt that, with proper pay, a lawyer could be found to prove it. And what a lawyer could do, a great many, who are not learned in the law would do as well.”–1893, Sermon 2304

“I may doubt my washing, but not when I believe in the cleansing virtue of the precious blood! It may be difficult to believe in my salvation, but not to believe in my Savior!”– 1891, Sermon 2199

“If you do not know spiritual things, ask God to let you know them. But you are out of court as a witness—you cannot prove a negative, nor can your negative disprove our positive! We cannot argue with you who are dead in sin and have not received, as yet, spiritual senses. What can you know? Why should we dispute with the blind concerning colors? How can we discuss music with the deaf?”–1887, Sermon 1979​“If you have not faith enough in Christ to say that you believe in Him, I do not think that you have faith enough in Christ to take you to heaven. For it is written concerning the place of doom, ‘The fearful’ (that is, the cowardly) ‘and unbelieving…shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone’ ” (Rev 21:8).–1892, Sermon 2275

“Faith is born at the Cross of Christ! Doubt becomes harder than faith when the Cross is visible! When Christ is set forth evidently crucified among us, each one of us should cry, ‘Lord, I believe, for Your death has killed my unbelief.’ ”–1892, Sermon 2281

“One grain of this faith is worth more than a diamond the size of the world—yes, though you should thread such jewels together, as many as the stars of heaven for number, they would be worth nothing compared with the smallest atom of faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God!”–1892, Sermon 2259

“All the exercises of faith about mercy must always be tethered to the Cross. Mercy flows through Christ alone.”–1891, Sermon 2199

“When one said to me the other day, ‘I cannot trust Christ,’ I enquired, ‘Can you trust me?’ And when the quick reply was, as it ought to be from a hearer to a minister, ‘Yes, Sir, I do trust you,’ I said, ‘Well, then, you certainly can trust the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is infinitely more worthy of being trusted than ever I can be.’ ”–1893, Sermon 2338“All that is said in the Word of God to sinners in general is meant for each sinner in particular, when he comes and takes it to himself by his own individual faith.”–1895, Sermon 2413

“Trust deeds and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even as laws are useful to society, but as laws cannot secure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief cannot create faith or secure honesty. And to men without conscience, they are not worth the paper they are written upon.”–1891, Sermon 2182

“We are not saved by obedience, for obedience is the result of salvation! We are saved by faith because faith leads us to obey! Faith is weakness clinging to strength and becoming strong through so doing.”–1891, Sermon 2209

“If you could understand your religion, it would be one that did not come from God—it would have been made by a man of limited capacity, like yourselves, who was therefore able to make what you can comprehend. But inasmuch as there are mysteries in your faith, to the top of which you cannot climb, be thankful that you need not climb them.”– 1893, Sermon 2303

“There are, in truth, but two denominations upon this earth: the Church and the world—those who are justified in Christ Jesus and those who are condemned in their sins.”–1887, Sermon 1987

“No sin, whatever it is, shall ruin any man if he shall come to Christ for mercy. Though you are black as hell’s midnight through iniquity, yet if you will come to Christ, He is ready to cleanse you. It is sin, after all, that lies at the door and blocks your way to the Savior.”–1895, Sermon 2411

“A man who worships his belly is a worse idolater than the one who worships a god of wood! A man who worships gold and silver, if that gold and silver should take the shape of sovereigns and shillings, is not a bit more justified in his idolatry than if he had made it into the shape of a calf and had bowed before it in idolatrous homage and reverence.”– 1894, Sermon 2384

“Think not of the sinner or of the greatness of his sin, but think of the greatness of the Savior!”–1895, Sermon 2434

“Beloved, you must know the bitterness of sin before you can know the blessedness of forgiveness! And you must have such a sight of sin as shall break your heart before you can understand the blessedness of the Divine covering, that sacred cover which hides sin effectually, blots it out, and even makes it cease to be. ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered’ ” (Psa 32:1)–1892, Sermon 2284

“When a man has been a gross offender, there will be a conversion that men and angels and devils will be sure to see—and this is one of the open evidences that he is a Christian.”–1893, Sermon 2297

“Sin and sorrow are wedded in the very nature of things and there is no dividing them. They that sow iniquity shall reap the same. Turn as it may, the river of wickedness at last falls into the sea of wrath! He that sins must smart, unless a Savior can be found to be his Surety and to smart for him.”–1887, Sermon 1992

“While a man is living in his sin, he is out of his mind, he is beside himself. I am sure that it is so. There is nothing more like madness than sin, and it is a moot point among those who study deep problems, how far insanity and the tendency to sin go side by side, and whereabouts it is that great sin and entire loss of responsibility may touch each other. I do not intend to discuss that question at all, but I am going to say that every sinner is morally and responsibly insane and, therefore, in a worse condition than if he were only mentally insane.”–1895, Sermon 2414

“‘Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth’ (Joh 18:7). Do they return to the fray? Having once felt Christ’s divine power, do they summon courage enough to attack Him again? Yes, for there is no limit to the malice and impudence of the human heart!”–1894, Sermon 2368

“There would be nobody to receive mercy if nobody were guilty.”–1894, Sermon 2372“When you who are living in unchastity and dishonestly speak badly of Christ and of Christians, you only speak after your own manner—and we cannot wish you to alter your tone until God has changed your heart!” –1893, Sermon 2304

“No one knows the true God in the real sense of knowledge except through Jesus Christ, for no man comes unto the Father but by the Son. But even if he could know God, in a measure, apart from the revelation of Him in Christ Jesus, it would be a knowledge of terror that would make him flee away and avoid God! It would not be life to our souls to know God apart from His Son, Jesus Christ! We must know the Christ whom He has sent or our knowledge does not bring eternal life to us.”–1895, Sermon 2396

“That [salvation] came from Christ is the best thing about the best thing that ever came from Christ! That He saves me is somehow better than my being saved. It is a blessed thing to go to heaven, but I do not know that it is not a better thing to be in Christ and so, as the result of it, to get into heaven.”–1891, Sermon 2213

“This is the chief aim of the enemy’s assaults: to get rid of Christ, to get rid of the Atonement, to get rid of His suffering in the place of men! They say they can embrace the rest of the Gospel, but what ‘rest’ is there? What is there left? A bloodless, Christless Gospel is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill; it neither honors God nor converts the sons of men.”–1894, Sermon 2368

“This, then, is my message to every [one] who desires salvation, ‘Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption’ (Psa 130:7). Do not let him begin by hoping in mercy and redemption, for these are not to be found apart from the Lord—but let him go at once to that divine Person with whom there is mercy and plenteous redemption, then both of those will be granted him. I wish I knew how to put this so plainly that every bewildered and cast-down spirit would catch my meaning and accept its counsel. I would also have preachers learn a lesson from the point I have been driving at. Let them not so much preach sinners to Christ as preach Christ to sinners. I am persuaded that a full and clear declaration of what Jesus is, as to His person, offices, character, work, and authority, would do more to produce faith than all our exhortations. Whosoever believeth in Him hath everlasting life (Joh 3:36; 5:24; 6:47); but how shall they believe unless they hear of Him?”–1891, Sermon 2199

“You notice that I am always preaching that doctrine of Substitution. I cannot help it because it is the only truth of God that brought me comfort. I should never have gotten out of the Dungeon of Despair if it had not been for that grand truth of Substitution! I hope that no young lady is going to ask me to write in her album this week. That request is made to me, I do not know how many days in the week, and I always write this verse in all the albums: ‘Ever since by faith I saw the stream, Thy flowing wounds supply, Re- deeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die.’ ”–1893, Sermon 2309